We examine the feasibility polyhedron of the uncapacitated hub location problem (UHL) with multiple allocation, which has applications in the fields of air passenger and cargo transportation, telecommunication and postal delivery services. In particular we determine the dimension and derive some classes of facets of this polyhedron. We develop some general rules about lifting facets from the uncapacitated facility location (UFL) for UHL and projecting facets from UHL to UFL. By applying these rules we get a new class of facets for UHL which dominates the inequalities in the original formulation. Thus we get a new formulation of UHL whose constraints are all facet defining. We show its superior computational performance by benchmarking it on a well known data set.

In this paper we address the question of how many objective functions are needed to decide whether a given point is a Pareto optimal solution for a multicriteria optimization problem. We extend earlier results showing that the set of weakly Pareto optimal points is the union of Pareto optimal sets of subproblems and show their limitations. We prove that for strictly quasi-convex problems in two variables Pareto optimality can be decided by consideration of at most three objectives at a time. Our results are based on a geometric characterization of Pareto, strict Pareto and weak Pareto solutions and Helly's Theorem. We also show that a generalization to quasi-convex objectives is not possible, and state a weaker result for this case. Furthermore, we show that a generalization to strictly Pareto optimal solutions is impossible, even in the convex case.

In this paper we deal with the determination of the whole set of Pareto-solutions of location problems with respect to Q general criteria.These criteria include median, center or cent-dian objective functions as particular instances.The paper characterizes the set of Pareto-solutions of a these multicriteria problems. An efficient algorithm for the planar case is developed and its complexity is established. Extensions to higher dimensions as well as to the non-convexcase are also considered.The proposed approach is more general than the previously published approaches to multi-criteria location problems and includes almost all of them as particular instances.

In this paper we deal with single facility location problems in a general normed space where the existing facilities are represented by sets. The criterion to be satis ed by the service facility is the minimization of an increasing function of the distances from the service to the closest point ofeach demand set. We obtain a geometrical characterization of the set of optimal solutions for this problem. Two remarkable cases - the classical Weber problem and the minmax problem with demand sets - are studied as particular instances of our problem. Finally, for the planar polyhedral case we give an algorithmic description of the solution set of the considered problems.

Let rC and rD be two convexdistance funtions in the plane with convex unit balls C and D. Given two points, p and q, we investigate the bisector, B(p,q), of p and q, where distance from p is measured by rC and distance from q by rD. We provide the following results. B(p,q) may consist of many connected components whose precise number can be derived from the intersection of the unit balls, C nd D. The bisector can contain bounded or unbounded 2-dimensional areas. Even more surprising, pieces of the bisector may appear inside the region of all points closer to p than to q. If C and D are convex polygons over m and m vertices, respectively, the bisector B(p,q) can consist of at most min(m,n) connected components which contain at most 2(m+n) vertices altogether. The former bound is tight, the latter is tight up to an additive constant. We also present an optimal O(m+n) time algorithm for computing the bisector.

Let A be a nonempty finite subset of R^2 representing the geographical coordinates of a set of demand points (towns, ...), to be served by a facility, whose location within a given region S is sought. Assuming that the unit cost for a in A if the facility is located at x in S is proportional to dist(x,a) - the distance from x to a - and that demand of point a is given by w_a, minimizing the total trnsportation cost TC(w,x) amounts to solving the Weber problem. In practice, it may be the case, however, that the demand vector w is not known, and only an estimator {hat w} can be provided. Moreover the errors in sich estimation process may be non-negligible. We propose a new model for this situation: select a threshold valus B 0 representing the highest admissible transportation cost. Define the robustness p of a location x as the minimum increase in demand needed to become inadmissible, i.e. p(x) = min{||w^*-{hat w}|| : TC(w^*,x) B, w^* = 0} and solve then the optimization problem max_{x in S} p(x) to get the most robust location.

Location problems with Q (in general conflicting) criteria are considered. After reviewing previous results of the authors dealing with lexicographic and Pareto location the main focus of the paper is on max-ordering locations. In these location problems the worst of the single objectives is minimized. After discussing some general results (including reductions to single criterion problems and the relation to lexicographic and Pareto locations) three solution techniques are introduced and exemplified using one location problem class, each: The direct approach, the decision space approach and the objective space approach. In the resulting solution algorithms emphasis is on the representation of the underlying geometric idea without fully exploring the computational complexity issue. A further specialization of max-ordering locations is obtained by introducing lexicographic max-ordering locations, which can be found efficiently. The paper is concluded by some ideas about future research topics related to max-ordering location problems.

In this paper we deal with the determination of the whole set of Pareto-solutions of location problems with respect to Q general criteria. These criteria include as particular instances median, center or cent-dian objective functions. The paper characterizes the set of Pareto-solutions of all these multicriteria problems. An efficient algorithm for the planar case is developed and its complexity is established. the proposed approach is more general than the previously published approaches to multicriteria location problems and includes almost all of them as particular instances.

In this paper we consider the problem of optimizing a piecewise-linear objective function over a non-convex domain. In particular we do not allow the solution to lie in the interior of a prespecified region R. We discuss the geometrical properties of this problems and present algorithms based on combinatorial arguments. In addition we show how we can construct quite complicated shaped sets R while maintaining the combinatorial properties.

In continous location problems we are given a set of existing facilities and we are looking for the location of one or several new facilities. In the classical approaches weights are assigned to existing facilities expressing the importance of the new facilities for the existing ones. In this paper, we consider a pointwise defined objective function where the weights are assigned to the existing facilities depending on the location of the new facility. This approach is shown to be a generalization of the median, center and centdian objective functions. In addition, this approach allows to formulate completely new location models. Efficient algorithms as well as structure results for this algebraic approach for location problems are presented. Extensions to the multifacility and restricted case are also considered.